HARVARD SUMMONS BASKETBALL HEADS

In a letter sent out recently by H. W. Clark '23, Assistant Director of Athletics at Harvard, the athletic heads of New England colleges are invited to participate in a conference to be held on March 30 at the Harvard Club of Boston to discuss means whereby the officiating of basketball games may be improved.

"After discussion with several of the institutions in the vicinity of Boston," the letter says, "we at Harvard have reached the conclusion that basketball is suffering from over-strict officiating...One evil seems to be the practise of most officials of working schoolboy and college games at practically the same time. While one set of rules seems to be satisfactory for both games, certainly a far different officiating technique is necessary and the good schoolboy official is not at all satisfactory for college work.

"Under these circumstances it seems the only logical thing to agree on a select group of officials who are capable of handling college games, and then to select all of our officials from that group so that each man in the group will be assured of enough college games to make his exclusion of school games worth while."

Commenting on the proposed conference, at which an attendance of approximately 20 is expected, Coach E. Wachter of Harvard declared, "The duty of a good official is to keep the game fast, clean, and under control. By that I do not mean that it should be a game of indoor football; but a great many officials have been too strict in handling a game. At present many games are being won from the foul line instead of from the floor. A uniform type of official who will speed up the action is needed; and I believe that the meeting at the end of the month is an excellent step toward the solution of the problem."

Yale and Dartmouth will not be represented at the conference, as they are members of the Intercollegiate Basketball League.